1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable terminal, and more particularly to the portable terminal in which more than a pair of housings are pivotally coupled to each other and circuit devices installed in each of the housings are communicatively interconnected to each other.
2. Description of the Related Art
As generally known in the art, the portable terminal is a device providing wireless communication function between users or between the user and a service provider via a mobile base station. Using the portable terminal, the user is provided with various kinds of service contents, such as voice communication, message transmission, mobile banking, television broadcasting, online game, VOD (video on demand), etc.
The portable terminal may be classified into the following categories depending on its exterior shape: a bar type terminal including a one-piece housing installed with a communication circuit and an input/output device, such as a transmitting portion and a receiving portion; a flip type terminal including a flip cover installed to the bar type terminal; a folder type terminal including a pair of housings, which may be pivotally opened/closed and in each of which the input and the output devices are respectively disposed. Recently, a sliding type terminal and a swing type terminal have appeared on the market and increased portability and convenience in use.
Amongst all the phones, the user tends to prefer the terminal including two or more housings connected to each other, such as the folder type terminal, the sliding type terminal and the swing type terminal. It is because the housings can be folded to each other which enables the user to carry around more conveniently. Also, it is because one of the housings can be unfolded or extended from the other to make the terminal operated more conveniently while in use.
In the terminal having a plurality of the housings as described before, a flexible printed circuit is used for establishing communication lines between circuit devices installed in each of the housings. Here, repeated opening/closing operations of the housings increase fatigue of the flexible printed circuit, so that there is a risk that circuit patterns formed thereon may be damaged. Further, in information transmission mode requiring a larger capacity, such as multi-media service, there is a problem in that the flexible printed circuit is not adequate for such transmission requiring a higher speed and larger capacity.
As an alternative to solve the above-stated problems in the flexible printed circuit, a number of proposals are provided in that a plurality of flexible circuits are overlapped to couple the circuit devices in the terminal housings to establish the communication lines for a higher speed and larger capacity. However, if a number of flexible printed circuits are overlapped to each other, there is another problem in that the terminal cannot be smoothly operated due to degradation of the flexibility or there is enhanced risk of damaging the flexible printed circuit further.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved portable terminal to solve the above-mentioned problems.